Sunday, 16 October 2005

The story of the fall in Genesis 3 has at times been used to explain the “origins” of sin and evil. But Helmut Thielicke is exactly right when he says: “The very point of this ancient story is that it shows us that we put the question wrongly when we ask how evil came into the world. That is to say, when anybody asks the question in this way he is diverting attention away from himself.”

—Helmut Thielicke, How the World Began: Man in the First Chapters of the Bible (London: James Clarke, 1964), p. 165.